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9:1  Then Job answered:
9:2  "Truly, I know that this is so. But how can a human be just before God?
9:3  If someone wishes to contend with him, he cannot answer him one time in a thousand.
9:4  He is wise in heart and mighty in strength--who has resisted him and remained safe?
9:5  He who removes mountains suddenly, who overturns them in his anger;
9:6  he who shakes the earth out of its place so that its pillars tremble;
9:7  he who commands the sun and it does not shine and seals up the stars;
9:8  he alone spreads out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea;
9:9  he makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the constellations of the southern sky;
9:10  he does great and unsearchable things, and wonderful things without number.
9:11  If he passes by me, I cannot see him, if he goes by, I cannot perceive him.
9:12  If he snatches away, who can turn him back? Who dares to say to him, 'What are you doing?'
9:13  God does not restrain his anger; under him the helpers of Rahab lie crushed.
9:14  "How much less, then, can I answer him and choose my words to argue with him!
9:15  Although I am innocent, I could not answer him; I could only plead with my judge for mercy.
9:16  If I summoned him, and he answered me, I would not believe that he would be listening to my voice--
9:17  he who crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds for no reason.
9:18  He does not allow me to recover my breath, for he fills me with bitterness.
9:19  If it is a matter of strength, most certainly he is the strong one! And if it is a matter of justice, he will say, 'Who will summon me?'
9:20  Although I am innocent, my mouth would condemn me; although I am blameless, it would declare me perverse.
9:21  I am blameless. I do not know myself. I despise my life.
9:22  "It is all one! That is why I say, 'He destroys the blameless and the guilty.'
9:23  If a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks at the despair of the innocent.
9:24  If a land has been given into the hand of a wicked man, he covers the faces of its judges; if it is not he, then who is it?
9:25  "My days are swifter than a runner, they speed by without seeing happiness.
9:26  They glide by like reed boats, like an eagle that swoops down on its prey.
9:27  If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will change my expression and be cheerful,'
9:28  I dread all my sufferings, for I know that you do not hold me blameless.
9:29  If I am guilty, why then weary myself in vain?
9:30  If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands clean with lye,
9:31  then you plunge me into a slimy pit and my own clothes abhor me.
9:32  For he is not a human being like I am, that I might answer him, that we might come together in judgment.
9:33  Nor is there an arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both,
9:34  who would take his rod away from me so that his terror would not make me afraid.
9:35  Then would I speak and not fear him, but it is not so with me.